sweet like cinnamon
by coerulus
Summary: "So it took the brightest witch of my age…a total of twelve minutes and twenty-one seconds to figure out my identity. You're losing your touch, Granger." Pansy smiled crookedly, one side of her ruby lips higher than the other. "Any longer and you would have been snogging me in some dark alley behind a pub."


At this point in her life, Pansy had lost _everything_ —her house, most of her money, relationships with other people—everything except a tiny shred of her dignity.

(And her favorite pair of cat-eye sunglasses).

Her dignity, not sunglasses, was the reason she was standing in front of a confusingly small and posh coffee shop, all polished glass and neatly checkered floors and wrought-iron table legs. Its fanciness was positively absurd, Pansy thought, but it wasn't like she was going to drink cheap Muggle dishwater coffee at…what was it called…Astrodeer, or whatever it was.

So here she was, standing mutely in front of a coffeeshop like an idiot, a pale shadow of her former self.

She stood in the queue and clenched one hand into a fist, the other around her wand, leaving angry red crescents in her palms. Glass panes showcased a variety of scones and muffins, none of them appetizing. A girl with bushy brown hair, dark and frizzy, manned the cash register, Sickles and Knuts falling into their respective columns in a neat, orderly fashion. The drawer rang shut. "Next customer please!" Sickeningly cheerful, Pansy thought to herself.

"Good morning, what can I get for you today?" the girl asked. She was average height, with clear skin that practically glowed in the early morning sun. Her unruly mane of brown hair was neatly tied back and scraped into a tidy bun at the nape of her neck. The dusty black apron she wore cinched at the waist where she tied it, revealing more-than-decent curves.

"Coffee, black, tallest you have," she said. She pulled out fourteen Sickles and dropped them on the counter, sliding them towards the barista with a long, manicured nail painted matte black.

"Could I have your name, please?"

"Pansy." A familiar name, but Hermione couldn't place a surname to it, and something about this girl really made her want to find out.

"Sugar or cream?"

" _No._ " If she had wanted some, she would have had the sense to _ask._

"Sorry I asked," Hermione muttered. "You could really do with some, if you asked me."

 _I could_ , Pansy thought bitterly, thinking of Draco. He dumped her for Daphne's sister, and not even her older one. It had to have been _Astoria_.

"Well," Pansy said smoothly, pushing her sunglasses up her forehead to reveal a strikingly sharp gaze and even sharper winged eyeliner, "how about you give me some then?" This girl was rather pretty, after all, and seemed familiar.

"You just said no sugar!" the barista exclaimed, smoothing back her dark, lush curls.

Pansy rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to say something before an old lady farther back in the queue shouted, "Get on with it!"

She turned back to Hermione. "That's not what I meant. No sugar in my coffee. When does your shift end?"

"Ten minutes. _Not_ that it's any of your business," said Hermione.

A collective groan arose from the queue.

"I won't have a shift to work if you don't move out of this queue," she hissed, scraping the Sickles into her register and waving a hand at Pansy. "Sorry," she called to the line. "I can help the next customer!"

Pansy smirked and tapped her sunglasses down over the bridge of her nose once again, and sat down at one of the wrought iron tables, left leg crossed over her right. "I'll wait," she said to Hermione, who huffed and pushed a curl out of her eye.

Ten extremely agonizing minutes later, Hermione sat down (as sharply as one could sit) opposite from Pansy, angrily chewing a chocolate cherry muffin. "Is there any particular reason you almost cost me my second job?"

"Do I know you from somewhere?" Pansy asks, delicately sipping her coffee and ignoring Hermione's question. She certainly looked like a Hogwarts girl.

"Absolutely not!"

"I'm sure you would have been nicer to me if we were acquainted."

"I'm sure I would have been if you weren't so— _snippy_ with me!"

"Who are you to be talking about being snippy with other people?"

Hermione plucked at the gold tag embossed with her name on it. "Hermione Granger, and I still don't know who you are."

"I just gave you my name." Pansy rotated the coffee cup to show Hermione's scribble of 'Pansy' across its surface.

"Parkinson?"

"So it took the brightest witch of my age…a total of twelve minutes and twenty-one seconds to figure out my identity. You're losing your touch, Granger." Pansy smiled crookedly, one side of her ruby lips higher than the other. "Any longer and you would have been snogging me in some dark alley behind a pub."

"Are you offering, Parkinson?"

"Am I?" Pansy said, gently tapping the heel of her crimson-soled stilettos on the leg of the table. "It seems the brightest witch has finally come across a question she can't answer."

"Well—seems you haven't got much charm in asking a girl out," Hermione fired back. She cringed a little. That was weak.

" _Au contraire_ ," said Pansy, now drumming her matte black fingernails on the table and taking another sip of coffee. Her lipstick (MAC Ruby Woo; Hermione had the same shade at home) left a vibrant imprint of her mouth on the cup's edge. "I can be quite charming when I need to be."

"And hitting on a girl doesn't warrant your charm?"

"I was perfectly charming."

Hermione rolled her eyes. How extraordinary it was that her childhood enemy was now trying to date her. It was almost as if Voldemort himself had descended from the sky offering her homemade strawberry cupcakes and asking to be chummy with her. "So what do you want with me, Pansy?"

"Right now? Another coffee and an organic gluten-free blueberry scone."

"You'd best get in the queue quickly then," said Hermione, pointing out the enormous conga line of people that had already begun to pile outside the door.

"I meant the ones I have at home," Pansy said, the same sharp grin she had sported earlier making a reappearance. She shoved the chair behind her and took her coffee, sliding her sunglasses down one last time so Hermione could fully see the devilish crinkles by her eyes. She was almost at the door when she called back to Hermione over her shoulder, "And, Granger."

"Yes?" Hermione was crushing the remaining crumbs of her muffin on her plate.

"I like lime tequila at The Rusty Goblet on Saturday nights."

"Excellent," Hermione said apathetically, straightening her bun. "Thanks for the fun fact."

"You're welcome." Pansy's robes were kicked up by the wind as she walked out the door, revealing a glimpse of her crimson-soled heels.

…

The following Saturday, Hermione discovered that she liked the taste of:

1\. Lime tequila

2\. Pansy Parkinson's lips

3\. Lime tequila on Pansy Parkinson's lips.

* * *

 **well god bless, i've finally posted again. i wrote this and successfully (sort of) dug myself out of a writing rut via my fic giveaway on tumblr. anyways, alice, if you're reading this, congratulations! i hope you enjoyed this :)  
**

 **thanks for reading!**

 **reviews are like gold nuggets; i treasure them. (sorry)**


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